


The Black Feather

by allthebeautifulthings9828



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angel Wings, Christmas, Christmas Fluff, Christmas Presents, Confessions, Declarations Of Love, Fallen Castiel, Falling In Love, First Kiss, First Love, Fluff, Friendship/Love, Gift Fic, Gift Giving, Human Castiel, Kissing, Love, Love Confessions, M/M, POV Castiel, Requited Love, Romance, Romantic Fluff, Romantic Friendship, Snow, True Love, Winged Castiel, Winter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-22
Updated: 2013-12-22
Packaged: 2018-01-05 11:18:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,127
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1093278
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/allthebeautifulthings9828/pseuds/allthebeautifulthings9828
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Castiel has a Christmas gift for Dean but it comes with a confession that he's not sure he should make. He's giving Dean something so deeply personal that if he gets rejected, he might never recover. Yet Castiel forages ahead. How will Dean take it?</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Black Feather

"Dean." Castiel rubbed the back of his neck and avoided eye contact. He didn’t know how to do this. "I have, uh, I mean to say…."

"Spit it out, Cas," teased Dean, smirking.

A nervous titter accompanied half a smile. “Well, it’s Christmas.”

"Oh yeah," he hummed, clearly having not thought of it at all. "Well, Merry Christmas then."

"Thanks. That’s actually why I wanted to talk to you privately." Here went nothing.

"Okay. What’s up?" Ever the hunter, Dean’s face hardened. He always seemed to expect the worst when anyone made a point to have a private moment with him. Perhaps it was because he never got anything different.

Snow crunched beneath Castiel’s new boots as he shuffled where he stood. He withdrew a rectangular white cardboard box from his heavy winter coat and fidgeted with a red ribbon at the top before he passed it to Dean. He had no idea how to wrap a gift. The red ribbon looked no different than the way he tied his shoelaces every morning. It didn’t matter much to him though. Anything thrown away moments after its use shouldn’t require so much anxiety.

Dean’s visage, extra pink in the snowy cold, shifted to something Castiel couldn’t quite read. “Cas, you got me a gift?” he asked, studying the box like it might bite him. “I didn’t think to get you anything. We never really pay much attention to holidays.”

"No, it’s okay. I know how you feel about Christmas," replied Castiel with a hand raised. "I don’t have a lot of money but this means a lot more to me. Hopefully to you too." But he didn’t know, which unnerved him. Perhaps it was a bad idea.

Rough hunter hands made quick work of the awkward red ribbon and thin cardboard box. Inside sat a mahogany chest of a small design and antiquated sensibility. Castiel had made a habit of collecting human artifacts for thousands of years before he was cast out. That little chest was one of only a few things he’d managed to rescue from the wreckage of Heaven. It came from a medieval village in France, but Dean didn’t need to know that yet. The real gift lay inside.

"Cool box," said Dean, though he eyed Castiel skeptically. "You sure you didn’t spend money on this?"

Castiel shook his head. “It was mine for a long time. Open it.”

Dean obeyed and fumbled with his thick fingers on the delicate gold clasp. He lifted the curved lid and peered inside, finding a single black feather. The softness and delicacy of it stretched out in that chest gave it a macabre appearance, as if the poor feather lay dead in a coffin. Perhaps that was the best description for it, all things considered. At a glance, it resembled nothing more than possibly a raven feather, but a thin sheen of glimmering blue and purple suggested something a little more magical.

"Is this…?"

"It’s me. Or it was me," Castiel corrected himself, remembering that he was an entirely different species that Christmas.

"Your wings," surmised Dean in sudden quiet reverence. "How am I seeing it?"

Castiel still had a difficult time looking at it. His eyes focused on the snow beneath his boots instead. "Once an angel feather is ripped from the wing, the grace slowly dies until human eyes can perceive it. My traces of grace left in it recently died enough for you to see it, so I wanted you to have it."

"Wow...." It rendered Dean speechless for the longest moment.

"Will you take care of it?" Castiel asked eventually.

"Yeah, Cas, you know I will. This is ... I really didn't expect this at all," he replied as he carefully traced his fingertip over the spine of the feather. "It feels like heat and ice at the same time. You sure your grace is...?" He couldn't say the word dead with any greater ease than Castiel could.

"Not completely, not yet. By winter's end, you won't feel anything different than an ordinary bird feather," he explained.

Dean nodded and turned the information in his head. "Do you have more of 'em?"

"No," Castiel replied bluntly.

Green eyes flashed to his face, shock cutting through the wispy veil of snow falling between them. "Wait. You just gave me the only feather you have left from your wings?"

"Yes."

"Cas..."

Castiel gently pushed the lid shut and nudged the little chest closer to Dean's chest. "You're the only one I trust to keep the last piece of my angelic existence safe. I want you to remember how I was, not this tiny, weak, fleshy thing I have to be now."

"Tiny?" The corner of Dean's mouth fought to smile. "You're hardly tiny."

Squinting, Castiel tilted his head. "I used to be the size of the Chrysler building."

"Point taken," Dean replied with a light chuckle.

Though Castiel smiled back, he knew he had to say what needed to be said before they froze to death. "Dean, you're the only one who has been on my side since we met. Even when you doubted me or even hated me because of the things I did, you were still there when I needed you. The bond between us has always superseded any outside forces at work and I know it's real because it wasn't supposed to happen. It wasn't in Heaven's plan." The words tumbled out of his mouth quite easily, but the underlying truth made him stumble. "I ... I care for you."

He mumbled it - yeah, he knew it - and Dean tilted closer. "What'd you say?"

"I ... I care ... for you," he said again, a little louder that time. "So there's no one else I'd want to have the last of what I was."

A blank stare answered him for so long that he felt himself sinking into the snow, into the earth, and he hoped he might disappear. But then, Dean's eyes softened. He deposited the little chest inside of his coat and suddenly his warm hands were around Castiel's face. His mouth thinned into a gentle, faint smile that seemed to come more from his eyes.

"Dean?" he murmured.

"Shut it, Cas." The smile grew into a smirk much more like Dean.

Wordlessly, their heads gravitated to one another so naturally that Castiel realized Dean must have thought about it before. Snow lightly fell around them as the hunter and the former angel shared their first kiss, giving in to years of silent questioning stares and avoiding closeness with others nearby. Full, warm lips slid, pushed, and pulled with each other experimentally. Time evaporated as Castiel grabbed fistfuls of Dean's coat.

"Good Christmas?" Castiel asked in a hazy tone.

"Great," said Dean with another kiss.


End file.
